Often is suspected that a particular program is very similar to an existing program. In a large program, it is difficult to review the entire program and determine how similar the two programs are. Furthermore, even if the two programs appear to be similar, it is difficult to come up with an objective measure of the similarity, such that above a certain level, one can say that there is too much similarity and that the particular program is a substantial copy of the existing program.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.